What's cooking in Spyder Labs?

The parents’ outcry on admission issue is valid and understood but the biggest question is that what is the real solution to this problem? Can it be designed-revised-implemented in a day? A month? An year? Couple of years? Not sure!

Three problems/issues we have been thinking for last couple of days:

• Problems that parents been facing so far?
• Problems that delhi schools faced?
• Problems that DOE/ Education Ministry faced?
  

Now here we are not only talking about problems/issues that surfaced this year but the ones that Delhi parents, schools, and DOE have been going thru for last several years. The problems that Mr. Ashok Agarwal and Ms. Shobhana Takiyar raised in their petition. The problems, issues that were discussed, investigated and analyzed by Mr. Ashok Gaguly and other members.

We have gone through that 9 page petition and a good 35 page Ganguly Committee report (aka recommendations) and also touched briskly another two most important documents1) Delhi Education Act 1973, 2) Delhi School Education Rules 1973. It really doesn’t make sense to bang heads in suggesting changes in past/current nursery admission rules, point system and so on without really understanding all this. Mr. Ashok Agarwal and his fellow really understood the problem when he decided the file that petition, Ganguly committee also did what they were asked to do and the document really a must read for all of us.

So what now? I invite suggestions from all parents but for now we shall be focusing on planned suggestions (based on facts from past not just this year alone) rather than random suggestions as I fear this will not work until we understand the problem, issues. Rest assured that there is a system approved by DOE but unfortunately the execution was wrong and some drawbacks added to the problem, and on top of that schools have flaunted it by all means.
Parents who have good understanding of (one or more of following): Delhi Edu Act (at least section 16), Delhi School Edu Rules (at least admissions specific), Mr Ashok Agarwal's petition and decision on it, Recommendations and report prepared by Ganguly committee and not to mention this year's DOE orders, please come forward and let's meet sometime this month on weekend and brainstorm on the issues so far (history so far, this year, and future), areas of improvement, and our plan for future (feasibility, and execution)

We all have had faced it ourselves for our kids, and parents have been going thru this pain for last several years. I am sure we have professionals from all backgrounds among us.

We think the real need is to do it all differently; platform is set we are ready to give our best efforts, what you say about this whole idea? Any suggestions, questions, ideas you may have - please do share as every comment counts and it will really help everyone.

(can't think of more at 1am night but little suggestion: for now/time being, please don’t send suggestions on fixing the system, because it is important to know your opinion on this thought to begin with – a well begun is half done so let’s take a very focused approach– right is n’t it?)

Survey results are shocking...we really need to think about it!

We conducted a survey and we had received almost 32 replies from parents within last 3 days. The results are very shocking and in fact reflect the kind of frustration and confusion every parent is going through. Here are the details:

As you can see, only 4% say that they will try Govt. school, so Mr. Lovely has a reason to smile as he can always come back and say that there are plenty of seats available in Govt. schools but parents are not willing to send their kids/wards to these schools.

Almost 40% parents ready to give bribe (well read ‘donation’) to the school/management in order to get that ‘one’ seat for their kid. Some parents (12%) think that they can plan shifting out of Delhi (to nearby regions) as they can get a seat there.

The most worrying part is that larger section of our community (62%) still doesn’t know what to do…if they don’t get a seat in Delhi.